Top 100 firms’ assets total nearly W1,500tr: report

The top 100 companies in South Korea have collective assets of nearly 1,500 trillion won ($1.36 trillion), equaling 95 percent of the nation’s public assets, according to a report released on Sunday.

Chaebul.com, an online corporate information provider, said that the 100 groups excluding state-owned or public enterprises had assets of 1,446.76 trillion won as of last year.

The financial power of private companies stands shoulder-to-shoulder with that of the nation, said the report, and is expected to soon exceed it as state assets grow relatively slowly. The 2011 Year-End Fiscal report revealed by the Finance Ministry in May stated that the sum of national assets last year was 1,532 trillion won.

“Company assets were much smaller (than national assets) until the early 1990s. But companies have been increasing their assets by an average of 8 percent per year. It is likely that the figure will exceed that of the state within the year,” said Chung Sun-sup, CEO of Chaebul.com.

Among the companies, the top five took up about 52 percent of the total assets, with 754 trillion won. Samsung Group topped the list with 279.82 trillion won, larger than the total assets of companies ranked between 25 and 100, which came to 267.84 trillion won.

It was followed by Hyundai Motors (154.71 trillion won), SK (136.46 trillion won), LG (100.77 trillion won) and Lotte (83.39 trillion won). The net profit of the top five was 42.64 trillion won, marking 65 percent of the total net profit of the 100 companies.

The total number of affiliates owned by the 100 companies was 2,498. Among the top 100 companies, 28 were run by the founder, 59 by second generation of the founder and 13 by the third.

By Park Min-young (claire@heraldcorp.com)